Nobody likes saltwater, anyway
About 38 percent of Texas' population could face water shortages during droughts in the next 50 years unless cities and other water use groups reduce demand or develop additional water sources, according to the 2002 State Water Plan.Desalination is seen as a way to produce more fresh water for the state's 21 million residents without building more reservoirs or pulling more water from underground aquifers. Advantages in technology have also made it less costly than in the past.
[...]
Texas has about 100 desalination plants producing 400 million gallons of fresh water from surface and groundwater. A groundbreaking was scheduled Friday in Brownsville for a new plant that should be in operation by next summer, ending residents' dependence on the unreliable Rio Grande.
This week the state took an even bigger step when the Texas Water Development Board identified three proposed sites for a large-scale demonstration seawater desalination project on the Gulf coast, the culmination of a study ordered in April 2002 by Gov. Rick Perry.
*shimmering fade-in*
Maybe Perry will have a vision and pull the government out of the utility industry and privatize everything. Perhaps he'll see an easy way to save the state money by offloading the utility bureaucracy. He'd see it as a way to please free-market Republicans and libertarians in Texas, give a huge opportunity to entrepreneurs and businesses around the state to develop utility capacity, and reduce the tax burden on Texans.
*shimmering fade-out*
I wish.
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Beware privatisation. It brings recession. I agree that partial privatisation might help, but fully privatising a public neccesity like that is kinda risky and I wouldn't wish for it. But of course, that is just me.
Posted by: Ken on December 15, 2002 04:13 AMI don't see the logic in "full privatization brings recession." All the reasons I listed in my faux dream sequence make good economic sense: reducing state spending, lightening the tax burden, and opening up new markets for people to exploit. Also, the secondary effects of such a change in practices would probably include (and not just limited to) a higher rate of investment in local economies from the extra workers those "blue collar" jobs would bring and IPO offerings for people to invest in.
It's only risky in the sense that a private utility can go out of business and possibly take down it's utility network with it. But that isn't likely to happen since other competitors would swoop in and buy the assets of the company and take over it's operation. This is directly due to the importance of "keeping the lights on" so to speak. People need uninterrupted electricty and clean water. Private businesses are more efficient about meeting those needs and do it better.
Posted by: Drizz on December 16, 2002 08:44 AM